Li Xuan did not immediately approve the fleet expansion plan handed over by the Navy. Such a big matter naturally cannot be decided on the fly. For example, the Navy said that it would build so many warships, and the funds required would be extremely high.
huge.
The cost of building battleships, cruisers, frigates, patrol ships and other naval combat vessels alone has reached more than three million yuan. Moreover, the navy does not know that it only builds combat vessels, but also needs to build various types of auxiliary ships. The number of these vessels
There are quite a few, and some auxiliary ships are very expensive.
For example, the Navy is building a fast transportation ship specifically for maritime communications. It has a displacement of just over 300 tons, but it is expected to cost more than 100,000 taels!
This fast transportation ship will adopt an innovative ship type, that is, the clipper ship designed by students from the Department of Shipbuilding at the Royal Institute of Technology. This kind of ship can reach a speed of fourteen or even higher in a tailwind.
, the Tang Dynasty has never built it before, so this is the first time to do it, so the various costs are naturally very high.
However, the Navy still placed the order. On the one hand, the Navy really needs fast ships to transmit various information. On the other hand, the Navy also has the consideration of promoting the development of shipbuilding technology. If new ship types are not built and tested,
How do you know if it works well?
Therefore, the two fast transportation ships currently under construction are actually test ships used by the Tang Dynasty Navy to test the flying shear ship type.
In addition to various auxiliary ships, the fleet expansion plan is also followed by the expansion of port facilities and investment in research and development of various new technologies.
All kinds of expenses were added up, and the navy proposed a total of eight million taels of silver!
Eight million taels of silver was not a high figure for the Tang Dynasty's fiscal revenue, nor was it high for other expenditures. After all, Li Xuan was prepared to invest within five years in order to carry out domestic immigration.
Ten million taels of silver.
But many things are not simply about looking at these eight million taels of silver!
Once this ship is built, it must be driven by officers and sailors, and the cost of raising these naval officers is not low. At present, the salary of the officers of the Datang Navy is generally higher than that of the army, because sailors are such
This profession is more dangerous than the Army, and it is also more difficult. It is also more professional than the Army, and the salary is higher than the Army. That is normal.
And when the number of these naval officers increases, the personnel salary expenses alone are not a small amount, and then there are various training and combat expenses.
In the end, when all of them are added up, the eight million will most likely double directly and become sixteen million taels of silver.
Coupled with the Navy's original military expenditure, in the next three to five years, the Navy's annual military expenditure is very likely to double, from the current more than two million taels of silver a year to more than five million.
At present, there are many places to spend money in various places in the Tang Dynasty. It is impossible to say that the military expenditure of the navy has doubled. Li Xuan still needs to think carefully.
Therefore, Li Xuan did not approve it immediately, but sent it back to the Navy for further revisions, mainly to calculate clearly the amount of the Navy's total military expenditures required in the next three and five years.
At the same time, Li Xuan also began to frequently summon officials from various cabinet ministries, especially the Ministry of Taxation, to estimate the Tang Dynasty's fiscal revenue and expenditure in the next few years.
Although I still don’t know why in October, Emperor Sheng began to care about the fiscal budget situation for next year and even the following years, but the civil servants in the cabinet are all upright and have very sensitive senses. They immediately discovered that Emperor Sheng might
There are big moves, and they are big moves that may require a lot of money.
Otherwise, the Holy Emperor would not specifically ask about the financial situation, especially the financial situation in the next few years.
The key to the question is, what exactly is Sheng Tianzi planning to do? How much will it cost?
If the amount is not too large, then they will not talk about it. For example, they are planning to renovate the palace, expand the royal courtyard, etc. That is a small matter. A few million taels of silver should be enough. If the cabinet coordinates one or two, then it will be
After squeezing out the money, as a minister, it is natural for the Holy Emperor to consider that although the Royal Courtyard where he lives now is luxurious and large enough, it is still somewhat inadequate compared to the Forbidden City.
However, if the Holy Emperor planned to do something that would waste people and money, such as rebuilding the palace all at once, which would cost tens of millions of taels of silver, then they would have to give some advice. The finances of the Tang Dynasty were still relatively tight.
It would be unwise to spend tens of millions to build a palace.
However, Li Xuan did not say that the current global strategy conceived by Li Xuan was only known to the top generals of the Navy and Army, which totaled only a dozen people, and Li Xuan was not prepared to carry out large-scale operations in a short period of time.
propaganda.
If Li Xuan didn't say anything, the civil servants were even more worried, but in the face of what Li Xuan had told them, they didn't have the guts to delay. The tax department quickly compiled Xuanping's seven-year financial budget.
At the same time, we also roughly worked out the main revenue and expenditure budgets for the eighth year of Xuanping and the ninth year of Xuanping.
According to estimates from the Ministry of Taxation, excluding parts of Hubei, Sichuan, Yunnan, and most of Shaanxi controlled by King Jing’s regime,
The Liaodong area controlled by King Hui!
At present, it does not include the Northeastern region, Tibetan areas, Xinjiang areas, Tatar steppe areas and other areas that are outside the rule of the Tang Dynasty.
Just based on the current actual control area of the Tang Dynasty, the fiscal revenue of Xuanping's seven years is expected to exceed 60 million, reaching about 65 million taels of silver. The bulk of the expenditure is military expenditure, which is about 30 million
Two taels of silver, administrative expenses are about 20 million taels, and another 10 million taels are invested in supporting industry and commerce, building water conservancy, and transportation. Another five million taels are used as emergency funds as usual.
In the eighth year of Xuanping, the income will continue to increase and may reach more than 70 million taels. By the ninth year of Xuanping, this number will most likely exceed 80 million.
However, people from the Ministry of Taxation also made it clear in the report that this estimate was only close to the estimate for the Xuanping Seven Years, because when making the estimate, the estimate from the Ministry of Taxation mainly included the newly occupied areas.
The agricultural tax is added, and then the planned increase in the existing control area is added.
But by the eighth year of Xuanping, the increase in this amount was mainly due to the increase in agricultural recovery and industrial and commercial development.
By the ninth year of Xuanping, the increase was basically concentrated on the growth of industry and commerce.
But the reason why the estimate is an estimate is because the Ministry of Taxation also knows how Datang's industry and commerce will develop in the next few years, and whether the agricultural recovery will be as fast as estimated.
Therefore, they can only give an approximate number, and they do not guarantee the accuracy of this number.
In terms of expenditures, military expenditures, administrative expenses, various subsidies, etc. also increase with the increase in fiscal revenue.
After Li Xuan looked at it carefully, he felt that given the future financial situation of the Tang Dynasty, it would be a bit reluctant to give the navy more than 5 million taels of silver in military expenses a year. After all, the army only needs more than 20 million taels a year.
Especially the military expenditure of the navy is different from that of the army. When the army expands, it will cost a lot of money to fight. But in peacetime or when there is no large-scale war, the main expenditure is actually the maintenance cost, which can be left over.
A big chunk.
But the navy has given five million taels now. Don't expect it to be lowered in the future. Basically, it has to maintain this level to maintain the size of the fleet.
So after Li Xuan understood the financial situation for the next three years, he directly gave instructions to the navy, four million a year, no more, and then your navy will expand the fleet based on this number.
The navy was not hypocritical. After complaining several times to no avail, it honestly submitted a new fleet expansion plan. This time, the number of battleships and cruisers was not reduced, but the number of various auxiliary ships was reduced a lot.
, plans such as port facilities have also been reduced a lot.
Later, Li Xuan officially approved the fleet expansion plan submitted by the Navy for the second round, thus kicking off the expansion of the Tang Navy's fleet!
When the domestic navy started to expand its fleet, in the eastern part of the Sunda Strait of the Java Sea, a small fleet was anchored on the sea. However, they did not pass directly through the strait, but were heading towards the land in the eastern part of the strait.
go.
There is the western section of Java Island: Banten!
This place is actually very similar to Malacca, because they are both important places to guard the Strait, so this time they headed south to the Java Sea. After careful discussion between Gerdes and Ying Zihua, they felt that it was still too dangerous to forcefully enter the Strait of Malacca, so the fleet changed its route to Sunda.
He strait!
This strait has not yet been controlled by other European colonists. The islands of Sumatra and Java on both sides of the strait are still under the rule of local indigenous people.
It is worth noting that the indigenous people in various parts of Southeast Asia, especially some in coastal port areas, have actually begun to come into contact with maritime merchants in West Asia and India a long time ago, and have been greatly influenced by them.
, such as religious beliefs.
They are no strangers to Europeans either!
Naturally, they are no strangers to the Chinese people. The maritime merchants of the Chinese Dynasty have actually been widely active in various parts of Southeast Asia. Although not many come to Java Island, there are always some.
After the fleet approached the port of Banten, it was not rejected by the local indigenous people. Instead, it was welcomed and they happily conducted some trade. They exchanged spices for some of the goods brought by the fleet.
And in response to Zihua's request that the Tang Dynasty Western Company hoped to establish a commercial center in Bandan and leave a number of personnel to station and store goods for long-term trade, he readily agreed, causing Ying Zihua to exclaim:
The people of Nanyang are so hospitable!
Anyway, the Chinese are not the first to come to trade. People from West Asian countries, Indians, and Europeans have all come here. They just hope to get a small piece of land on the seaside to build a business store. It is not a big deal!
Moreover, Datang Western Company also gave money to purchase land. On the surface, the money for purchasing land was quite a lot, but privately, even more money was given to those officials!
Besides, they didn’t dare to object!
When Ying Zihua made this request to them, the warship outside the port just opened the gun window, revealing rows of dark gun barrels, and also conducted a salvo firing exercise!